New Roads
by nolifeinabox
Summary: Rude was a lot of things before he was a Turk. He never felt right in the city, but eventually it felt right in him.


When Rude finally makes it back to the shack that he calls his apartment it's already after 2am. The power is out, which isn't unusual but it makes scaling the ladder and the roof of the larger, equally dilapidated structure it's built atop that much more disconcerting. He doesn't think anyone lives below him, at least not in any permanent sense, but sometimes his feet send shingles crashing down and he neither wants to attract attention nor cause harm. When he'd first arrived here a month ago, all of eighteen, he'd been more worried about harm. Tonight it's attention that worries him. He's used to standing out by now, has accepted that he'll never look like a local, and he's used to the attention that brings. He hasn't had much trouble so far, those that would normally start it deferring to his not inconsiderable stature of six feet, eight inches, and the kind of practical muscle one grows from honest work. Still, there have been a rash of sometimes violent robberies on his street. Not that he has anything of value. Not that anyone talks about the robberies.

His back aches as he climbs, and his hands are raw. A lot of concrete today. A lot of wood pallets to break. He works on a demolition team, clearing the old and not always abandoned so Shinra can build new.

He is so tired that it doesn't occur to him that the power being out mean his hotplate wouldn't work. Or that he hadn't bought groceries in...hadn't bought groceries. He eats at stalls and carts when he can, and when he can't he lives on canned soup, and pre-cooked meat from the can, and grilled cheese sandwiches. It is 2am and he does not have any of those things.

It's exhausting. Destroying things. Finding that his hands are made for it. He thinks maybe if he had a reason, it would be easier. But they're paid to tear shit down, not to wonder why.

Gods, he's hungry though. What's open now? Things close early in the slums. No theft insurance down here. Not even any lawkeepers. Not really. The only place he can think of is the stand with the pink sign. It never closes. And it's impossible to tell what the meat is, that goes into it's food. Though there are rumors. Rude has never thought of himself as picky, but he won't eat there.

He's never gone hungry before.

But he has money in his pocket. He knows in the morning he'll buy waffles wrapped around scrambled eggs and bacon like an ice cream cone on his way to work. Maybe he'll buy two.

He lays down on his mattress which lays right on the floor. He lets himself go ahead and be hungry, go ahead and think about home cooked meals. The last one he'd had had been the day he left home. His mother and youngest sister had packed him a lunch for the journey. An egg salad sandwich with hot sauce and tomatoes. A little tin of fruit salad too. Three sugar cookies. He'd been too nervous to eat it then, in the back of the truck on the way to Midgar, crammed in with others from the outside towns, all following the promise of a job.

They did just fine for themselves on the farm, but they didn't really make money. Not money like they'd need for the programs Sunny's teacher had recommended. The teacher was right. Sunny was brilliant. She shouldn't stay in that tiny town forever. Most of Rude's friends had already moved to one city or another for about the same reasons.

So when the word had come from Midgar, that there was work, Rude had gone.

He falls asleep that night with that same nervous knot in his stomach, his minds eye watering with the memory of farmland and forest and swirling dust kicked up on swirling, dusty roads, and the sun rising behind the silhouettes of his family.

In the morning, he still aches. He gets up and goes to work anyway. He does get those two waffles, and feels better. He'll call home again tonight.

-oOo-

The cats that live here are different, but not. They are the same half-feral as the barn cats he remembers. But at home they'd lived amongst humans the same as cattle and walls, and could be friendly if they saw some profit in it. The alley cats of Midgar though regard them with too bright eyes that make Rude think of wolves, and treat even food left on doorsteps with suspicion. They are the only animals he's seen though, since he's lived here. Except for rats and monsters. He does not think about the animals at home, because when he does he misses them more than he misses seeing the sky. A few times a week, if there's no one much around, he sits on his doorstep with tins of cat food and canned Shinra fish just to watch them. The nights he doesn't, he feels like the only flesh and blood thing bellow the plate.

-oOo-

His second night in Midgar he'd gotten lost. Not lost exactly, but he'd ended up somewhere he shouldn't have, that he didn't know he shouldn't have until he was there. They'd had work in under Seven that day, and his hotel was close enough to the edge of Six that he'd decided to walk instead of paying train fair. He kept to streets with lights, and people, but block by block those both changed. Though honestly, realizing he'd wandered into a red light area hadn't bothered him. Surprised, and mildly intrigued, but not bothered. Until he'd come by one neon sign, violently purple, that cast it's light on a group of kids. Kids. That had stopped him in his tracks. There were three of them, sitting on boxes and leaned against the wall. A red haired boy who could only be twelve? Thirteen? And two black haired girls, no older than his little sister. They wore fishnets and loose hanging shirts and jeans that were more rip than fabric, and bare feet. He'd frozen when they turned their eyes on him, all together like pack animals. They're eyes had been like bright stones, and they were all knees and elbows and the bones in their wrists and their shoulders and their faces stood out like they would cut. Their hands held each others and they bared white-blunt teeth around glowing cigarettes, not smiling, like they knew he would only waste their time. Could smell the outsider on him. He'd thought of his youngest sister. She'd turned fifteen just days before he left home. He'd thought of her nobby knees and her white teeth and the way her hands held charcoal and oil pencils, and the way she smiled gathering eggs, and her test scores which would get her into any private academy on Gaia if they only had the money. He'd thought of why he had taken the job in Midgar in the first place.

And then he didn't think about it anymore because one of the girls, the one with curls was, slinking towards him.

"Aww, yeh los', then?" She'd drawled, a little too high and a little too sweet. "Yeh ain' no up-sider, yo. Country boy then?" Her movements were exaggerated, burlesque. She locked their eyes and he saw as much anger as amusement there. The red head had slipped off his perch then, slunk over to lean into her with the same show.

"Sho' is Lis'. An' ain' those new folks always talkin' how s'lonely inna city, yo?" He'd known that they'd known that he was shaken. He'd wondered if they played this game with everyone who looked a little too up-side, or outside. A little too clean. Or maybe he was just that out of place.

"Tha' right." She'd nodded. "How 'bout yeh country? Yeh lonely? 'Cause y'knows lonely is our specialty, yo." And they'd both started laughing together, sharp and raking, and all at once he'd come back to himself and he was stumbling back, and half running down the street, their laughter following his heels.

It hadn't been early in the evening anymore, when he got to the hotel. He'd called home anyway. He'd needed to hear Sunny's voice. Needed to hear about the sheering season, and her engineering projects, and the letter she was writing to that singer she loved.

-oOo-

There must be a colony near his place, because as the weeks go by Rude recognizes the same cats over and over. He's getting to know them, and that realization is the first thing that makes Midgar start to feel like someday it could be home. There is the tabby with the missing ear, and the fluffy one that might have been white but for the inescapable grime, and they don't go anywhere without each other. Then there's the black one with the white paws, who's the most personable. The orange one with the stubbed tail who's meanest. He is careful not to name them. He learns that they like canned chicken better than canned fish, and he takes this as advice for his own meals.

-oOo-

The first time he ever tried alcohol, Landis had ordered whiskey, cheapest in the house. One for Rude and one for himself. The foreman had knocked the whole thing back like water. With Landis and the others watching him expectantly, he'd tried to do the same, and come up coughing with tears in his eyes, and six hands pounding his back good naturally, six laughing voices. Lightly sadistic, but not unfriendly. They'd ordered him another and he'd kept control of it that time, schooling his face, and been met with smiles that told him he was officially part of the team now. No longer a newbie outsider. And it had been nice. Wonderful really, and warm, to belong somewhere again after almost three months in an alien city.

Now, after work, he goes with them to Dog's House more nights than not. He flirts with the waitress with the short brown curls and the peach colored lipstick. Or rather, she flirts with him, and he responds with self conscious monosyllables. They have the same conversations with slight variations day after day. But she doesn't seem to get tired of it, and neither does he.

Now, he drinks beer. All kinds. He loves to try them and suss out the differences. He loves the moisture that clings to the glasses and making patterns in it with his thumb. He loves labels on bottles, and peeling them off slowly over the night, trying for all one piece. He doesn't actually order when he comes in, the bartender just see's him and pours a pint of whatever on tap is newest.

He is just comfortable enough here, with his coworkers, to keep his words to himself. They've learned as much. They ask him questions and never wait for answers. But he likes being here, watching them, listening to them talk. Landis may be a cursing hard-ass on the work site, but after hours he laughs the loudest, and hugs everyone. Shelly and Syaoran are locked in an endless competition of darts. Mitchel and Emon and Breeda flirt with the bartenders, and snicker amongst themselves over the flaws they find with everyone who walks in.

There is something much more jagged and hard about them than any people he's ever known before, and the kindest of them are still quick to fight, and quicker with cynicism. It's a Midgar thing, he thinks.

One day the lot of them walk in just in time to see a whole tray of full glasses crash to the floor from the peach lipped waitresses hands. A man he didn't recognize had stood, and purposefully flipped it away. He was yelling now, but Rude couldn't care less what about. Her pretty blue dress was soaked and stained, and her ankles had been cut by the flying glass.

He knocks three of the guys teeth out in a single punch, before he even realizes he means to throw it. Then he drags him out the door. Then he pays the bastards tab, because he figures he wouldn't be back to pay it himself, and it isn't fair for the staff to get stiffed for it.

Landis and Shelly look at him sideways all night. When he finally asks, Shelly says

"You're saving money for your folks, isn't that it?" and Landis adds

"Know a way you could do that real quick."

-oOo-

Something has happened to his cats. For two weeks he does not see any of them. One morning, when he had left food out hopefully, he finds the tins empty but scattered across the street, which the cats don't do. After three weeks, the white cat returns, but not it's friend, and the white cat doesn't eat. Just curls up unusually close and looks at him. The black cat with the white paws is injured, and not friendly anymore. Not enough for him to catch it, and check on it anyway.

The orange cat appears again a few weeks later. She looks like she's going to have kittens. He isn't sure whether this makes him happy or sad.

-oOo-

Thursday. Third fight of the week. He hasn't lost a match yet, and the pool tonight is more money than he makes in a month at his actual job. Behind him the makeshift cage shuts with a stuttering shriek. He slides on the shades that have become his trademark as the echo fades, swallowed by the anxious, excited chatter of the audience. Landis had given them to him, after his second fight. Had said he looked too surprised at his own victory.

They're cheap, and he likes the way they mute out colors, dilute his opponent, dilute the shifting, thrumming crowd that presses itself against the rusty barriers.

They could hurt him if they shattered. But between his height, his weight, and what he can't decide if it's luck, skill, or both, no one has actually gotten near his face yet.

As the pipe rings against the cage, signaling a start to the match, he admits he likes that too. The clear sound. The rush.

This one is nothing special, but he thinks he is. With his metal knuckles he probably got from an actual shop, and his ridiculous, half shaved, half short cropped hair that the shades hide the color of. He thinks he is. They all do. It's...gratifying, to knock them down to size.

The man swings at him, metal and cracked flesh flying straight for his jaw. The fist hits his gloved palm instead, and then can't free itself from the bone-creaking pressure. It was the stupid first move of a man who hadn't bothered to study his opponent. The main flails and claws and spits, striking with his feet and his free hand. Lands nothing. Rude deflects and doges without releasing, dragging the other fighter casually around the ring by the trapped hand.

"The fuck is wrong with you! Fucking fight me!" The man spits, wild. They both can feel the bone threatening to give. Rude makes a gesture that might be a shrug, and obliges. Spinning. Slams the man face first into the barrier while the crowd leaps back gasping and clamoring. Blood spatters the ground, and the bars. Let's go. Steps back. The man whirls on him, swinging and frothing pink with rage. Chases him a few steps back. Hits the cage again. And again. Rude has to admit to being mildly impressed that he doesn't stay down until the fourth time.

The wave of whooping applause and re-surging adrenaline crashes over him again. Exhilarating. Almost familiar. He let's it.

With the money he's making here, Sunny really will have her choice of schools. He can even help Dahlia and her husband with their business, he thinks. They need it, with the baby on the way. Tonight he made five thousand gil. He will send it home in letters, bit by bit, so his parents don't worry. When they ask, he says he's taken a second job as a bouncer.

This isn't entirely untrue, he reasons. He likes the staff and most of the regulars at Dog's House. He takes no small pleasure in throwing thieves and assholes out on their asses, at a nod from the bartender. Usually gets a free beer out of it too.

-oOo-

He learns that the orange cat has had her kittens when he finds one crying around the side of the larger house. It isn't in good shape. When he approaches it, it retreats back into what he guesses had one been a crawlspace, the wood long since rotted. He goes after it. The weakened wood breaks away easily in his hands, and it's only minutes before he can fit his own broad shoulders into the gap. He has a little flashlight on his keys, and he doesn't really need it, the floor is broken enough to let in light, but uses it anyway just to be sure. He doesn't have to crawl very far. Which is good, because it doesn't occur to him until he's under the house up to his hips that maybe leaving half of his body hanging out unguarded in the middle of under Six isn't the best plan he's ever had.

He finds five kittens curled together, the sixth sits in front of them, looking at him, crying with it's tail curled around itself. The mother cat is nowhere to be seen. Probably hunting. The kittens are absolutely covered in fleas, and clearly weakening from it. Three of them are already dead. This isn't unusual for feral litters, but it makes a decision for him anyway. He gathers the three survivors in his large hands and wriggles his way out from under the house. He has to hold them against his chest as he climbs the ladder to his place, so they don't fall.

Inside he finds a box and puts them in, then he puts the box on his bed and turns on the lamp. The bulb probably doesn't produce enough heat to help, but right now it's the best he can do. He pulls a wad of money out from his mattress, peels of a few bills, and heads for the door.

It takes longer than he thought. A lot longer. And more money than he'd expected. But a few hours later he returns with flea bath, and actual cat food, and a hot water bottle and rags. They are not well fed. It's hard to tell how old they are. He isn't sure if it's safe yet, but the fleas are so thick he knows they will die if not bathed. Two of them are too weak to cry, and the water in his sink turns a dusty red as the parasites and dried blood wash away. When they are clean he dries them very gently, and tucks the water bottle and the rags into their box to keep them warm.

In the morning two are dead. He coaxes the living one to eat a little. On his way to work that morning, he throws the two bodies away.

For two weeks he does nothing but go to work and nurse the last kitten back to health. It grows so quickly that he knows now it must be older than he thought, and with food and sleep, and water as clean as it comes bellow the plate it's orange and white fur grows bright and full. Soon he finds himself buying toys. He puts a box with litter beneath the sink. He sleeps curled around the first box, until the kitten is big enough that he isn't worried about killing it on accident. Then, it sleeps curled on his back. He does his best to keep it inside.

He never gives it a name.


End file.
